Jackson Free Press

Our children are our greatest commodities. It is our responsibility as parents, as teachers and adults to protect and nurture them so they can grow to be productive citizens.

Now more than ever, our young people are faced with obstacles that neither you nor I may have envisioned during our childhood. More of our kids are being born into poverty. More of our kids are homeless. More of our kids are experiencing failing school systems with nonchalant instructors who just want to make it to Friday every week.

With that said, as a society, we need to begin doing a better job of shielding our children from those ills that can ruin them at an early age. We must let our kids be kids, yet we must give peace of mind to parents and guardians like me who suffer from the anxiety of holding a child's life in our hands.

I'm saddened at the recent rash of incidents involving adults molesting children. It's sickening, quite frankly. Gone are the days where youth coaches could be trusted completely—those surrogate mothers- or fathers-away-from-home whom you thanked for whipping your kid into shape and for teaching them about sportsmanship and hard work—no more. In light of all these cases, we may distrust teachers whom we once revered.

Sure, not all coaches or teachers are pedophiles. In fact, the majority of them aren't. But those guilty few have made it much harder for parents like me to ever feel comfortable entrusting the safety of my kids to anyone else. Literally. It scares me to death that we can't be in several places at once. It scares me even more that at first glance you can never tell if someone aims to do harm to your kid. 

What do you say to a Green Elementary student who had his trust betrayed by an adult who should have been caring for him? What if the acts were revealed to other adults, and they, too, swept them under the rug? What do the parents do? How can they continue to have faith?

What does a father do when watching a video of his child being assaulted on a school bus and sees that an adult watched from only a few feet away? What if that adult, the bus driver, felt he'd be reprimanded for "touching" a child if he tried to break up the assault? We have a problem if we can't distinguish between sexual assault and breaking up a fight.

How do you discipline two teenaged mothers in Alabama who leave three toddlers at home unattended, left to fend for themselves? How do we send the message that we are serious about not harming children and make it stick?

Can parents keep their sanity while being leery of day-care providers, baby sitters and summer-league coaches? Can our kids lead productive lives if we keep them from hanging out with friends in the neighborhood because we're afraid some adult nearby will cheer on a scuffle instead of breaking it up?

As a father of four, I'm disappointed where our society has gone as it relates to our children. It is paramount that we keep them not only safe, but also warm, fed, educated and supplied with the proper tools to survive in a fast-paced world.

Call me paranoid, but I lose sleep and sanity any time my kids are not under my wing. And although I'm sure my parents had similar concerns, they had to have a level of comfort that we modern parents will never achieve.

Observation, proper planning, research and prayer are the best tools we have to save our kids from predators and bullies. Let's love these kids, whether they are yours or not. It still takes a village.

And that's the truth ... sho-nuff.